Preparing for the Inauguration

Savannah resident Tina A. Brown has her own blog here on savannahnow.com. However, she's having technicial difficulties in Washington, D.C., so I'm posting this for her...

THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

My college roommates decided months ago that we were going to the inauguration. We didn't have a place to stay so we called our friends, who called their friends and we found a place to stay in Maryland less than an hour from the big event.

It's amazing what friends will do for friends. We've created an extended friends family. Many of the women who stayed in that two-bedroom apartment had never met each other before Sunday. But together we are going to witness history.

Most of us were babies during the Civil Rights Movement so we missed the late Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech" at the mall in Washington. We didn't get invited to the Million Man March, so the election of the country's first black president was pretty significant. Something to see.

So we took a chance and stayed with strangers. Our new sister escorted us to the Metro train line to make sure we had tickets and showed us extraordinary hospitality throughout our visit. For the sake of supporting one of our country's most memorable events, we learned to trust a friend of a friend and her friends. We witnessed unbelievable acts of kindness from one woman who opened up her home and heart and made an inflatable bed feel comfortable while she slept on the floor.

A CONFESSION

I'm obsessed with the red, white and blue. I've been waiting to wave it into the air on Tuesday, not as a salute to Obama but more so a salute to U.S. voters who exercised their rights to vote. This is what my forefathers fought for. True Democracy for all people.

A New America

Public events very seldom make me feel weepy. It's hard to explain that feeling. But as I watched thousands of people getting their `Metro Cards'' needed to ride the underground subway from Maryland to the District of Columbia, I couldn't help but feel emotional.

There were no clear lines. No police tape. No one bullied or fought their way to the machines. It seemed that we as Americans many of whom had traveled great distances to witness history - had learned to be patient.

Some cheered those who got tickets for the big event. But mostly people quietly purchased the $7.60 one day pass with Obama's photograph on them. Then, we boarded the trains and headed into the District to check out the landscape of what we might expect on Tuesday.

The Greenbelt train had a modest crowd when we stopped onto the platform just blocks from the Capitol. Thousands walked the streets, passing vendors, buying food and memorabilia with a different kind of swagger.

Frankly, people were bouncing down the streets and not just because the temperature neared freezing. Most were headed to ``the mall'' in front of the U.S. Capitol where they checked out first hand the assigned seating and the unassigned standing behind the barricades. Those who decided not to volunteer in honor of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday decided to mill about the public grounds. There was no shortage of cameras or energy.

It's Cold outside: The National Weather Service called for freezing temperatures so almost everyone who walked the mall had on layers, sometimes two hats and two sets of gloves. But the hot ticket items that seemed to sell out of regional stores were ``hand and toe warmers.''

For less than two bucks the warmers bring the heat to cold places. Massage the pads with your fingers. Put them inside your shoes or inside your gloves and instantly it feels like someone has covered your precious extremities with a warm blanket that stays heated for seven hours.